In 1977 model year, Chevrolet still used lacquer; by 1981 my, they'd switched to enamels ( I suspect? the Corvette was the last model to change, which happened June of 1981 when Corvette production was moved to Bowling Green from St Louis).... that's as close as I can narrow it down to...

In 78 GM started the transition to water borne paint (which was the death knell for the Framingham Ma plant) I remember looking at a 78 T/A and it had some of the worst orange peel paint that I had ever seen on a production car.

The Norwood paint shop was modernized and converted from acrylic lacquer to basecoat/clearcoat for the new 1982 3rd-generation car.

Which by the time I purchased my '85 Z new, had become the nearest next-to-nothing paint film thickness known to man. I traded the car off with 19K miles on it in '87, maintained extemely well, and the paint was already coming off the hood. Film thickness had to be in microns, and very few of them at that. Loved the old underpowered black Z, though - still have the build sheet around here somewhere.

Sorry to digress, but I also liked my '69's lacquer a lot more, especially in LeMans Blue.

Norwood started out with Turbo Bells and Hi-Solids enamel in 1982 which was modified to BC/CC. When it came on line in late 1981 it was the best paint system in the industry. The Norwood Facility was toured by Benz and Toyota and others - because of the paint shop.

Due to environmental restrictions in California- the LOS built cars were stuck with an inferior water based paint shop and system.

For those of us who don't know about a 'Norwood Reunion', can you elaborate? My '69 hugger orange/black Z28/RS also has the original 'Fisher' paint, although some parts of the Norwood Assembly Paint (front clip) have been resprayed.

In 78 GM started the transition to water borne paint (which was the death knell for the Framingham Ma plant) I remember looking at a 78 T/A and it had some of the worst orange peel paint that I had ever seen on a production car.

Wow, I had no idea GM was working with water borne paints in production 35 years ago. We were switching to water borne paint 7 years ago and one of the negatives with its use was orange peel.